Pokerama-rama! Now with more beer!

Beer, brewing and poker, with possibly some inane drivel on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

I'm broke.

There, with that out of the way...wait, what do you mean "explain"? Awh, do I have to? Poop.

November was one of my best poker months, and it came at a great time, right before the WPBT at the Imperial Palace. I cashed out my online 'bankroll'--if you can call it that--a week before leaving, and it allowed me the opportunity to play in games higher than I'd played before. That, my friends, was a good feeling.

I basically broke even that weekend, poker-wise, but when I returned back home, I didn't re-deposit all that Vegas money back in my account. A large portion of it, sure, but looking back, it definitely wasn't enough. Since that time, I've been on what basically amounts to a -650bb downswing. 2 1/2 months of losing. The amount of money shipped to the other side of the table isn't the most important part, because it's technically not a large amount of money comparatively.

The -650bb lost is what stings. Poker is a huge, masochistic mindfuck. Looking at my graph of the last two months, and all the awful red columns in my PT database, well, that rips the shiv out forcefully, and in it's place, jams in Paul Bunyan's axe.

That's a Minnesota reference, people. No, 'axe' is not a euphamism for 'wang'. Not in this instance at least.

I was playing on Full Tilt this Sunday, when it finally happened; I went on tilt. I never go on tilt. I'm pretty good at leaving a table if I've just suffered a bad beat and steaming, but go on tilt I did. And the result?

Pissing away what was left of my already decimated bankroll. AA is cracked by QQ happens every damn day. Hell, just the week before I cracked AA with my QQ, and laughed when the opponent called me a 'lucky $%#@*&'. After finding Otis' post on different forms of tilt, I realized the tilt I suffered from wasn't outlined.

Sure, it could be called 'variance tilt', incurred from months of getting kicked in the taint, but I don't think that adequately described my play. I think a better way to describe it, for me at least, would be 'apathy tilt'.

Apathy tilt-The version of tilt incurred by the false mindset that, regardless of what you do, what cards you're dealt, or how well you play those cards, it just doesn't matter. It's the feeling I had that I couldn't control the outcome; that no matter what I did, I couldn't win. So, I spewed chips when I was way behind, and if you've ever played against me at all, you know it's tough to take me for a whole stack unless you suck out on me, hardcore. I'm not much of a donater. Or, at least I wasn't until last week.

The last $25 of my online bankroll went away thusly; I'm sitting on a 6-max table on the button with 10d-Jd. It's folded around and I raise it to 4x bb and am called by only the big blind. The flop comes out J-7-6, two spades. The opponent checks, I fire a continuation bet, and he decides to check raise me all in. Without even thinking about what he might have, I called his $19 check raise. With a pair of jacks with a 10 kicker.

I knew I was beat, and it wasn't even a close decision. And I still called! All I could think was, well, he's gotta have me beat, but rather than make the right choice and fold, I'll call because I'm just going to lose this money eventually, and I might as well let it happen sooner, rather than later. Spewage.

Right now, sitting in various online poker accounts, there's a total of 1 cent. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. Where in the fuck am I supposed to go from here? It's not like Full Tilt plans on starting quarter-penny tournaments, right?

Right.

I have money that I could deposit, but I can't say that I really want to at this time. It wouldn't be very wise of me to do that. Not that it's stopped me before, I'm just saying. For the time being, the only poker I will be playing is 500 FT point token tourneys. When I exhaust all of those points, I'm not sure what I'll do. Not quit, that's for sure, but it's obvious that my plan of attack--or lack thereof--failed, and miserably at that. I need goals. I need something to strive for. I need to hire someone to shock me in the balls when I do stupid things with my bankroll, not because I particularly enjoy being shocked in the balls(not that I know of, anyway), but because I deserve it.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

I download Poker Patterns a few weeks ago, and even if I blink and rub my eyes, I can't believe what I'm seeing here. This graph highlights my craptacular play at low-limit NL games on Full Tilt since the beginning of February. The first thing you'll notice is that I've played almost 9K hands in 14 days. That's a shitload for me. The second thing you'll notice is that I suck. No, seriously, I suck.

Of course this graph doesn't detail the money I've lost playing Tier One SNGs, plain SNGs or MTT's either. Oof-dah.

Right after I returned from Vegas about 3 weeks, I devised a plan (because "devised" sounds loftier than "durrrr, I plannded") to dig through my PokerTracker in order to find out my major leaks. And I found a huge leak; my blind play. Huge leak. But apparently that's not my only one, and it'll be no time at all before I run out of toes and fingers to shore up this dyke. Don't be surprised when I ask one of y'all to unbuckle my pants, because once I find out where poker's ear is, I'm going to fuck it. Right in the ear.

All in all, I haven't lost that much money, but when I saw the upsweep like I did between hands 5.7k and 7.3k, I thought I was on the right track to rebuilding a bankroll. Silly me.

I was at the bar on Sunday night--my normal Sunday night bar--talking with one of the bartenders that decided to belly up after his shift was over. He asked what I did besides drink, and of course I responded with "Play a lot of poker. A lot", and he responded "Oh? What sites?".

I was surprised to find that not only does he play on Stars and Full Tilt, but he digs through 2+2 and Pocket Fives on a pretty consistent basis. G-Vegas has their overabundance of home games, and LA has Murderer's Row. Here in Minneapolis, we have nothing. No, no, you don't need to cry for me. I've done enough of that for all 4 of us. Not counting Drizz and I, it's tough to find people around these parts that take the game even halfway serious.

And my half-seriousness is seriously questionable.

The one thing the bartender said that made me feel not so bad about myself, is that he's terrible at bankroll management. Hey, at least I'm not the only one!

Friday, February 10, 2006

Some of you may remember my little condom story a few months back. If it doesn't ring a bell, well, that's too bad. I'm not reposting it, and I'm not linking to it. Suckers.

Anyhow, I was perusing the pages of my new Men's Fitness magazine(it's the least gay of all the so-called "men's mags") when I came across a contest asking for good condom anecdotes, and in return, the winner will be showered with free condoms. Not that I need anymore condoms, as I already have enough to last me until my dick shrivels up and falls off--so, at least until next week--but I'd be stupid to pass up an opportunity like this.

Hey, I can do this. I can write stupid stuff about condoms and we all know how I like free stuff. I was born to make shit up and be given crap for free. See how I used both "shit" and "crap" in the same sentence? Not just any dumbass could pull that off. Nope, just a rare breed of dumbass like myself.

I thought about submitting my previous condom story, but that's too easy, and many people just didn't understand that the post was a joke. But there's another condom story that needs to be told; a better condom story. A condom story for the ages.

I was a lanky college sophomore with a not-so lanky freshman girlfriend. Like many couples our age, our sex life was slightly akin to that of rabbits on speed, pumped full of Cialis. If there was a free moment between classes, we were doin' it. Yes, it.

On the couch, on the floor, on my bed, on my roommates bed; we were all about the having of the sex. I'd rather you not tell me old roommate about that last locale, though. He still owes me money, and I'd like to get it back someday. And because of all this sex we were having, we went through a lot of condoms. A lot.

To this day, I'm not really sure what we thought we were trying to accomplish by using said condoms. She was on Depo, and we were both eachothers "firsts"(there's no way anyone else would ever have given it to me at 19 years old, and she wasn't experienced enough to turn whorish), so those two worries weren't a priority. Must've been the college naivety--that I miss ever so much--that caused us to use condoms when we technically didn't have to. No matter, we still used them.

After a particularly delicious meal at the restuarant that would become the staple of our college-aged affair(Buffalo Wild Wings),we decided to head back to my dorm room for a little pants-unbuckling relaxation. Think, Hot Wings meets a female Al Bundy, and you have my then girlfriend. My roommate was gone for the weekend--my roommate was always gone for the weekend--and since we shared a three person dorm room, that meant so many more spots to defile with our teenage hump tactics. I know that sounds thoroughly disgusting, what with the buffalo wings and such, but I was 19, damn it. How many times did you turn down sex at that age? I rest my case.

We had a problem, though; no condoms. My constant begging for barebacking was met with her insistance that we absolutely needed condoms, and her insistance is what ultimately forced me down to the dorm lobby bathroom to face the coin-operated machine on the wall, the machine that dispensed generic brand condoms. I put three quarters in my pocket and walked slowly to show my displeasure in her decision, because if she was going to make me take the elevator while sportin' a boner, I was going to make her wait for sex. I sure showed her!

I walked into the bathroom, took the quarters out of my pocket, and immediately turned the sink faucet on high. This served two purposes; one, it caused a buffer between the bathroom and the main hallway right outside the door. If anyone was walking by, they couldn't hear me plunking quarters in the machine. And two, if anyone should happen to walk in the bathroom while I was standing near the condom machine, I could quickly zip over to sink and make like I was washing my hands. Why yes, I was a little shy. Why do you ask?

This machine never had the good condoms. There were no Trojans, it didn't come stocked with Lifestyles even. No, I had two choices; Ruff Rider, and Chocolate Flavored. Nice.

I always considered myself a ripe, sexual virtuouso, so of course I opted for the Ruff Rider. I was going to hump my girlfriend, and damn it, she was going to feel all nine seconds of the experience. All about stamina, I was not.

I packed the quarters together, put them in the machine, and pulled the knob for Ruff Rider and...nothing.

Nothing happened.

I pulled the knob again, and this time my three quarters came shooting out of the slot where the condom was supposed to slide gently out of, the condom that was supposed to fall ever so delicately into my cupped hands. But no, I had quarters spewed about all over the dirty bathroom floor.

After spending the next minute frantically looking for, and collecting, my loose change, I packed the quarters together, and decided to try for my namesake one last time. Quarters in and...pull. Nothing.

I wisely placed my hand in front of the slot and pulled again, and the quarters bouced off my lifeline before coming to rest against the bottom of my palm, sans condom. Dejected, I decided to try my luck at the Chocolate Flavored brother to the Ruff Rider. I didn't want a Chocolate Flavored condom, and I'm pretty sure that my girlfriend didn't want a Chocolate Flavored condom, but sometimes you've just got to make do, and synthetic food additives be damned.

I inserted the quarters, placed my hand in front of the slot, and pulled. This time a condom came out...along with my three quarters. Figuring it for a fluke, I tried again. Quarters in, hand over slot, and pull.

Another Choco-Condom.

Damn it, this machine is paying out, and I was the grand prize winner!

I repeated the process 10 or 15 more times, until my pockets were full of condoms, and at that time, I turned off the water buffer, slowly stuck my head out into the hallway to make sure nobody had been listening from outside, and ran to the right, to the bank of elevators that would take me up to my room. I entered the room with a smirk, walked over to where my girlfriend was sitting on the floor, fully clothed, and emptied the contents of my pockets all over her head. She wasn't too pleased to be bonked by the quarters, but she did laugh at all the black condoms. In fact, she was so enthused that she made me--yes, made me--go back downstairs and get more. And being the obedient, sex-driven male that I was(I've grown up so much since then, I tells ya), I complied without even hearing the end of her sentence.

After three condom runs, we ended up with a pile of close to 60 ChocoCondoms in the middle of my dorm room floor. After a few taste tests(by her, not me. I'm not that sick), we decided that we now had 60 unusable condoms because the flavor was "like dirt, but dirt that's not of this earth". Not only that, the stink they produced was other-worldy as well.

Come to think of it, that night ended like many that would follow in the year to come; with me unsexed, cursing my girlfriend while she slept.

The next day, after my girlfriend had finally made her back over to her own room, I decided to make use of at least one of the condoms by trying it on. Oh come on, all men have done it at least once since reaching the sex-having age. Well just last week I...uh, nevermind.

Anyhow, after trying on the condom, I laughed and was finally thankful that we didn't try to hump through the taste and bad smell. The sight of my black penis was just too much, and it couldn't have been more humorous to look at had I wrapped it in blue duct tape.

Monday, February 06, 2006

"You need a different perspective. Oh, and stop being a pussy."

Those words from words have been rolling through my brain since Drunk Pauly bluntly told me that during the drunkeness that was the WPBT Winter Classic. Coming from anyone else, I might've been offended. That is, if I was offended over the truth. But I'm not, and it is the truth that I am, undoubtedly, a pussy.

I woke up this morning with a Super Bowl sized hangover, only to call in sick to work. Again. I've got the accumulated vacation, so it's not that much of a big deal. The booze made it feel like my eyeballs were being pressed outward, and Pauly's words resonating though my brain didn't help my upset stomach much.

I need a change, and I need it soon. And it's high time I do something about it.

Minneapolis is a great city.

In the summer.

The wintertime only ehances my seasonal affective disorder, and that's no bueno, folks. I realize that while I love living here, there's nothing holding here. I'm single, my job is dispensible for the most part, and I can always pay the 15 child support payments/ month via the internet. I've got no reason to not branch out.

Through this very blog right here, I've met people from all over the country. I've read--or skimmed--all of your blogs for the past 3 years. And right now, I'd like to ask y'all for some advice.

Where should Chad move?

I've been very few places in this country, or outside of it. So, I'd like some suggestions on what cities would be a good fit for a single guy like me. I'm not even going to include my limitations, which are present.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Last night while pouring through the PokerTracker forums, I was thrilled--nay, piss my pants giddy--to see that the Tribeca network was in the Beta version of being supported. That's right, Doyle's room now has PokerTracker support.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeal!

I spent probably close to 3 hours trying to find where I'd stashed all my old Doyle's Room hand histories, and after I got everything loaded into PT, I wish that I hadn't. Talk about sad, sad stats.

Dating back to May of last year, I logged nearly 40k hands, mostly 6 max, at Doyle's room. And what have I learned? That I'm a winning player, but I'm a sucky winning player. My winrate was so small I needed a 10x superdouble magnifying glass to see the profit. It's become obvious to me that the few tourney scores that I had, well, that's what made my year better than break-even, not the ring games.

If there's one thing I can take from this, it's that I play the blinds like shit. In every other position on the table, the stats were a pretty color of chartreuse--that's right, I said chartreuse--but both the SB and BB were a nice, healthy shade of scarlet. This isn't the PGA, though, and red numbers are bad.

Had I just folded everytime the blinds came to me, I would've been a few thousand ahead. That is, if I was reading the stats right, and I'm pretty sure I was spot-on.

Does that make anyone else nauseous? No, just me? PUKE.

Regardless of how bad of a poker player I am, not even looking at the mediocre streak that I'm on right now, there's always something that makes me feel better. No, I haven't been tripping cripples again. And nay, I haven't been stealing cut tennis balls from the bottom of grandma's walker again(though that is hilarious). What turned my frown upside-down?